Mary Shakespeare, née Mary Arden, (c. 1537–1608) was the mother of William Shakespeare. She was the daughter of Robert Arden and his first wife Mary Arden née Mary Webb (second daughter of Sir John Alexander Webb). The Arden family had been prominent in Warwickshire since before the Norman Conquest. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and she inherited her father's farm, now called Mary Arden's House, in Wilmcote, Warwickshire when he died i...
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Mary Shakespeare, née Mary Arden, (c. 1537–1608) was the mother of William Shakespeare. She was the daughter of Robert Arden and his first wife Mary Arden née Mary Webb (second daughter of Sir John Alexander Webb). The Arden family had been prominent in Warwickshire since before the Norman Conquest. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and she inherited her father's farm, now called Mary Arden's House, in Wilmcote, Warwickshire when he died in December 1556.
Richard Shakespeare, the father of John Shakespeare, Mary's husband, was a tenant farmer on land owned by her father in Snitterfield. As the daughter of Richard's landlord; she may have known John since childhood. Mary married John Shakespeare in 1557, when she was in her late teens or early twenties. She bore eight children: Joan (1558), Margaret (1562–63), William (1564–1616), Gilbert (1566–1612), Joan (1569–1646), Anne (1571–79), Richard (1574–1613), and Edmund (1580–1607). Though they had many children, the couple did not...
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